Dao or daoyin refers to various physical movements of the human body such as extending or contracting the limbs, bending or lifting the head, walking or lying, reading aloud or reciting a poem and breathing. This may help regulate shen and qi, nourish the body and mind in order to keep fit and prolong life. That is to say that with your bones and mus-cles in dong and attention focused on your mind, you can relieve fatigue and anxiety, dispel pathogenic factor, remove stagnancy in the channels and direct the smooth flow of qi in the body. In so doing, you will make your qi flow constantly in your body just as "running water never becomes stale and a door-hinge never gets worm-eaten. "
The daoyin exercises are mentioned in quite a few historical records, such as "a bear climbing the tree and a bird stretching its claws" in ZhuangZi (Book of Master Zhuang), 40-odd daoyin diagrams in Dao Yin Tu (Daoyin Exercises Illustrated) from a tomb of the Han Dynasty (206 B. C. -220 A. D. ) unearthed in Changsha, Hunan Province and over 260 forms of daoyin exercise in Zhu Bing Yuan Hou Lun published in the Sui Dynasty (581-618).
